One Starless Night
by olivemonkey
Summary: Castiel and Benny have a frank discussion about what lies ahead for them while Dean sleeps, one night in Purgatory. Spoilers through 8x07.


Angels didn't need to sleep. Neither did vampires. It made for a very awkward night's watch.

Dean was oblivious, which was just as well (although Castiel wasn't entirely sure whether or not this was intentional on Dean's part). The band of three had to do little more than stop for the evening and Dean would be down on the ground with his head on his arm, fast asleep. A few gracious moments of oblivion, or so Castiel hoped on Dean's behalf. He had enough energy left to hope for a small thing such as that, though not, as it turned out, to be envious of it. Castiel and Benny would sit on opposite sides of the clearing and, if all went very well, they would proceed to ignore each other until Dean woke up and dragged them along once more in his wake. If all went poorly, Dean got to wake up in the middle of a fight with a swarm of werewolf souls, or worse yet, Leviathan.

And if all went absolutely abominably, Benny would decide that he was bored and strike up a conversation.

"Cold tonight," he observed conversationally. His fangs were out, and he was idly picking them with what might very well have been – at some point in its past life – a finger bone. "You ain't feeling a little chill in just your shirt-sleeves there, angel cake?"

"The cold doesn't disturb me," said Castiel, and wished that he meant it. There were more than enough things to be disturbed by out there without the temperature being counted among them. "You should be quiet. We might not need to sleep, but _he_ does."

Benny rolled an eye to where Dean was snoring softly under Castiel's overcoat. "Boy could sleep through a landslide if he knows he got someone watching his back. My concern is more directed toward that filthy thing you got draped over him. Last I heard, ain't cleanliness and godliness supposed to be in the same neighborhood?"

"I'm curious," said Castiel. "How is it that an abomination such as yourself comes to be an expert on what godliness entails?"

There was a brief lapse into irritated quiet on both their parts. Castiel sat and listened to the silent woods of Purgatory, without cricket or bird or even wind to rustle the leaves, and he squinted up at the starless, inky skies. Dean coughed once and rolled over, breaking the spell of silence, and Benny said into the emptiness that followed, "You and I both know you ain't hopping through that portal, angel cake, and I got to confess I'm curious as to why it is you ain't buggered off yet one of these nights and taken your Leviathan playmates with you."

Castiel said nothing, and Benny pressed again, leaning forward a bit where he sat and pointing the bone toothpick like an admonishing finger. "Now I'm betting there's a little matter of _can't_ pass through, but by my account, what's on your mind is a little more of _won't_. And I suppose with as good of pals as we been getting to be I'm just all over curious what makes a man want to buy himself a summer home down here."

Castiel still said nothing. Benny grunted, and pushed his hat back away from his eyes with the knuckles of one hand. "Wish Dean'd had a demon in his pocket instead of an angel. At least those boys got some appreciation for the art of conversation."

"How long have you been here in Purgatory?"

Benny glanced over at Castiel, his look suddenly much more guarded. "Why?"

"How long have you been down here – how many years?"

"Why – fifty years, by my best guess. More or less." Benny laughed once, not a friendly sound. "Sure feels like more on most days, though."

Castiel nodded. "And before you were sent here – how many people did you kill, Benny?"

Benny's eyes flicked once to Dean, then back to Castiel's face. "Like I told you, I was on the wagon by the time I—"

"That wasn't what I asked," Castiel interrupted. He had raised his voice a little, without meaning to. He reined in the unintentional extra volume now. "How many did you kill?"

Benny shrugged, and his eyes were hard. "Didn't keep count, but – a hundred, maybe two. A lot of folks." He flashed Castiel a cold smile. "No take-backs, I'm sorry to say."

"You lost someone very dear to you," Castiel said, in a moment of abrupt clarity. Benny's jaw worked for a moment, and he opened his mouth to reply, but Castiel held up a hand. "I'm sorry. My intention was not to pry – or to judge. I've had more than my fill of judging, I think … Benny, you killed a hundred people. I killed a hundred times that many – a thousand times, more. My brother and sister angels, innocent men and women …" He looked over at Dean, who had stopped snoring after rolling over and started wheezing instead. It was a profoundly irritating sound. Castiel caught himself in a smile and forced it away again. "I came very, very close to destroying the only real family I have ever known."

"I can see where this is going," said Benny. His expression had closed down somewhat from the painful openness of a moment before, but his voice was still hoarse. "Don't be a fool, angel cake. Is that what this is all about?"

"You've been down here fifty years," Castiel continued. "I've been down here less than one. My punishment is much more deserved."

"This door closes, another one don't just open. Not in fifty years' time. Most likely not ever. You know that."

"I do," said Castiel, and he was frightened by that knowledge, but reassured by it too: that this was the right thing, that he was – for once – on the right path.

Benny had no reply to that, choosing instead to inspect the blade that he held across his lap. Castiel sat back on his heels across the clearing and tried not to think about how much more of humanity Benny the vampire had known, would continue to know, that Castiel would never even touch, that he would always know only from a distance, from the outside looking in, without the heat or light or warmth. It wasn't fair – but then again, Castiel had long since forfeited any claim he might ever have had to 'fair' – hadn't he?

He was finally shaken from his internal monologue by the first diffuse rays of light spilling out onto the ground – Purgatory didn't seem to have a sun, properly speaking, but there was at least light to differentiate the endless days from the endless nights. Small blessings. Castiel picked himself up off the ground, walked over to Dean, and retrieved his battered coat.

"Does he know?" asked Benny, a little too shrewdly, as Castiel was shrugging back into the sleeves. There was an undercurrent of amusement there, too, one that ran deep; and for a moment the angel froze.

"No," he said finally, purposefully misunderstanding the question. He had never been a good liar, but obfuscating stupidity had always served him well enough. "No, Dean doesn't know I'm not planning on following you back. And he isn't going to know until it's too late for him to do anything about it. He _can't_ know, Benny."

"Course not," said Benny. He stood up, stretched, sauntered over to stand over Dean beside Castiel. "Well, brother, I can tell you one thing sure: he'll have someone watching out for him on the flip side."

It made Castiel feel better, and it also made him feel far worse. Watching over the Winchesters had been his job for a long time. But maybe it was time for someone else to have a crack at it. "Good," he said, and walked away from them, back to his spot across the clearing. He folded his arms across his chest, shoved his hands into his armpits to warm them. "Perhaps you'll do a better job of it than I did."


End file.
